Start the journey from the heart

Question 1:

It is good that the desire for enlightenment seems far away, because the desire for enlightenment is the greatest barrier in attaining it.

It is one of the eternal questions for the seekers of truth. On the one hand the masters go on saying, "Attain enlightenment," and on the other hand they go on saying, "Don't desire it." And it has been a great puzzle for the poor disciple. The master is saying both things: desire it, and don't desire it.

Desire it because it is the only thing desirable; don't desire it because desire becomes a barrier.

Not to create that puzzle for you, my way of working has been different. Just being with you, talking or not talking, just giving my whole heart to you and creating a situation in which you can taste something of enlightenment... even that small taste of enlightenment will be enough for you to stop here and now in this moment. You will forget all desires, enlightenment included.

If a situation can be created in which you are so blissful, so contented, that just for a moment there is no desire in your mind, you have learned a great lesson - that if this state of no-desire can continue every moment, you need not bother about enlightenment: it will come to you. You have not to go to it. It is not an object sitting somewhere that you have to desire and find and work hard and go to it.

It is simply your own state when there is no desire.

This desirelessness is the most blissful state possible, and enlightenment is another name for it.

Knowing it even for one moment is enough, because you are never given by life two moments together; it is always one moment. And if you know the secret, the alchemy of transforming this moment, you know the whole secret of transforming life, because the next moment will also be the same. You can do to it what you have done before; you can continue in desirelessness.

Being in my presence... I am using it as a device to avoid any confusion and puzzle in your mind. I can give you the taste, and then the taste will take care of you. First, the desire for enlightenment will look so far away, and by and by you will forget all about it because you will be in it; it will be within you. And certainly in the beginning it looks like a beautiful dream, because we are accustomed to reality and its ugliness. We know beauty only in dreams.

So whenever something like this happens to you even while you are fully awake, it feels as if it is a dream. Reality cannot be so nourishing, so tremendously beautiful, so magnificent: reality cannot have this magic. But I tell you, reality is more magical than any dream. It is more beautiful than any dream; it is more poetic than the greatest poetries of the world.

The reality that we know is not the true reality; it is the reality seen through an ugly mind which projects itself on reality. We don't see the real; we always see it colored with our own prejudices, ideas, our whole mind. And even that we see only while running. We never relax. We are always constantly on the run, knowing not where we are going. It is just that something seems to be missing, and we are trying to find it everywhere, in all directions. And we will not find it anywhere, because this mind will always be between you and the real, distorting the real.

If you are receptive in my presence, if you are loving, your mind leaves you for a moment - it has to leave you. Something more important than your mind is happening. That's what love means. You can even sacrifice yourself - in trust you sacrifice the mind, and the moment the mind is put aside and you see eye to eye with reality, it is so beautiful, indescribably beautiful. And certainly in those moments you will feel that you don't even want to be enlightened. If this reality can go on and on forever, then what more can enlightenment give you?

And you are right, because this is the beginning of enlightenment. You have got just a glimpse, and even the glimpse makes you drop the desire for enlightenment - and dropping the desire makes enlightenment easily possible. It simply happens. One day suddenly you wake up in the morning and you are not the same person, and with your change the whole existence has changed. And then it is not a question of doing something to keep it; it remains with you.

In fact, even if you want to drop it, you cannot drop it. You cannot go back; you can only go forward.

And one day, that day also comes in your life when enlightenment becomes so natural to you - just like breathing, just like the heartbeat, just like the blood running through your veins - that you don't even feel it. And the blood is going really fast, round and round from feet to head, but we don't feel it; we are born with it, we are accustomed to it.

When enlightenment becomes just a natural phenomenon, then the last mystery opens its door: one goes even beyond enlightenment. Going beyond enlightenment means one becomes just ordinary, part of this vast universe - without any claim, without any superiority, without any ego. One simply dissolves in the ocean of reality, just like a dewdrop in the morning sun slipping from the lotus leaf into the ocean. That is the last... Then there is nothing else left to happen; you have become the ocean.

Enlightenment still keeps something of you... very fragile, but there is still some idea of "I." And because of enlightenment, not knowingly, you are superior and you feel superior. That's why the last step, when even that smallest part of "I" also dissolves... now you are neither superior nor inferior:

you are not. Existence is. Buddha calls it nirvana. He has chosen the best word for it.

Question 2:

There is no need to do anything else. If you are enjoying it, you have heard me from the heart. It is an overflowing with love, an understanding beyond words. You have not tried to understand; you have never used the mind. It is good, perfectly good - that's how the journey should begin.

When the heart is completely full of joy, it starts overflowing in all directions; the mind is not kept apart. That's what is happening: you suddenly started listening with an effort to understand, and you feel your head is full of a strange tingling. That means something is overflowing from the heart, because that tingle cannot be possible by understanding only words. And if you are feeling joyful, enjoying it, then there is no problem: it is simply the heart and mind are getting into tune; their conflict is dissolving, their antagonism is disappearing. Soon they will be one thing.

Then the very hearing is both - it reaches to your heart as a vibe, a thrill, and to the mind as an understanding - and both are connected with you. The problem is only when the head starts the journey. It is a miser. In the first place it cannot understand many things but it pretends to understand them, so it creates a falsity. And it cannot give anything to the heart; it is not even aware of the heart.

It does not know giving, it knows only getting; it is greedy.

You will be surprised to know that the English word ?greed' comes from a Sanskrit word. In Sanskrit the vulture is called gridha. Gridha and greed come from the same root. The mind is a vulture. It is significant to understand because the vulture is always present if there is a corpse, if somebody is dead.

If you go to Bombay, the Parsee cemetery is something to see. It is one of the most beautiful places, exactly in the middle of Bombay. Parsees exist only in Bombay. Originally they were Persians and from Persian has come the Hindi word parsee. Because they were not willing to be converted to Mohammedanism, they escaped and landed in Bombay. Since then their whole existence in the world has been within the boundaries of Bombay, because the whole of Persia became Mohammedan - forcibly.

When they had first come, the place they chose for their cemetery was outside Bombay. But all Bombay has been growing tremendously and now it is exactly in the middle - a thick forest. The Parsee cemetery has something strange: it has a very big well, and on the top of the well there are iron rods. They put the corpse on the rods so that it cannot fall into the well. Then the vultures eat the corpse, and only the bones fall into the well. The well is full of bones - it is a very big well. And on all the trees you will find thousands of vultures sitting, waiting for somebody to die. They live only on the dead.

Strange it is that the mind also lives on something dead, not on anything living. When the mind starts the journey it thinks it is trying to understand the meaning, but it really kills the meaning. All that was alive in those words is left out; only the dead part is absorbed. That's what I mean when I say someone is intellectual. That means he has collected many dead bones, but he has not tasted life at all. He is full of words, but he himself gives meaning to them; he does not take meaning from them, so the whole journey goes wrong.

If one starts from the mind, one remains confined to the mind. He collects words, becomes a scholar, an intellectual, but it is not intelligence. His first step, to begin with the mind, is unintelligent.

I have never come up against any intelligent intellectual. That looks absurd because ordinarily we think intellectuals are intelligent people, but that is not true. Intellectuals live only on dead words.

Intelligence cannot do that. Intelligence drops the word - that is the corpse - and just takes the living vibe in it.

So it is good to start the journey from the heart. The intelligent man's way is the way of the heart, because the heart is not interested in words; it is interested only in the juice that comes in the containers of the words. It does not collect containers; it simply drinks the juice and throws away the container. The mind does just the opposite: it throws away the juice and collects the containers.

Containers look beautiful, and a great collection of containers makes a man a great intellectual giant.

If you start the journey from the head you will go on round and round and round inside the head.

Your head will become swollen; you will become more egoistic.

Hasya was asking me, "Why don't we invite intellectuals, authors, writers, professors to understand you?" This is the problem: they cannot understand. It is good if they read my books; they may be able to collect some words, some containers, but to be in my presence they will feel awkward, because my whole emphasis is on the juice, not on the containers. I am trying hard so that you throw away the container and you simply take the juice.

The heart knows how to become drunk, and the heart knows how to give, how to share. It is willing to share even with the mind. And when the heart shares with the mind then there is a difference because the heart has no containers; it can share only the juice. If the mind is willing to take, it will have to take the juice. That's why you are feeling the tingling sensation. Soon the heart will also fill the mind with the same juice. It will fill your whole body with the same tingling sensation. It is a dance of each cell in your being.

So what is happening is perfectly good - and it is happening; you are not doing. Doing is always suspicious; happening is never suspicious. So whenever something is happening, go with it - go with it totally, with no reservations at all, and you will always be getting into deeper benediction, into deeper blessings.

Question 3:

Even today I am in the majority of one. I will die in the majority of one!

Truth is not something that can become collective; it remains individual. The collective masses are not without reason so much afraid of a man of truth, because truth can never become collective; only lies can become collective. Even a single man of truth is enough to put fire to the whole forest of lies, because even thousands of lies cannot face a single statement of truth.

Lies don't have any life; they are dead. They are just a burden - they don't give you any freedom, they don't give you any joy; they simply burden you so much that you lose all hope of ever becoming a free individual and accept enslavement. And that is their function.

Every society, every religion, every civilization is lying and corrupting the minds of their children with all kinds of lies, and naturally, filled with these lies, the masses become very much afraid. Any truth is like fire; they cannot face it. Truth is always an individual discovery; it has always been, and so it will be in the future. It is one man's majority.

I called it "majority" because although it is one man's, he is not a minority. His truth is so powerful that the whole world may be on one side... even then his truth cannot be destroyed. The man can be destroyed - society has tried to destroy many beautiful men simply to destroy their truth. Still they have not understood the fact that you can destroy the man but you cannot destroy the truth.

The truth will remain. Once it is discovered, it is not going to disappear. You can destroy the original discoverer; somebody else will become a vehicle. Truth will find a way in the thickest jungle of lies.

It always prevails. It may take time, but for truth time does not matter; it always prevails.

The lie is decorated with all kinds of makeup, but it is still a lie. You can make it look like a real thing, but it is just an appearance. A little staring at it and you will find it is not real, it is unreal. And the moment one understands something as false, the false falls on the ground dead. Dead it was - it has always been dead, it was born dead - but you had never looked at it.

It takes time for any truth to prevail because the jungle of lies is so thick. All the vested interests are so protective of lies, and all the powers are on the side of lies.

Every newborn child is born in the world of lies. But still, because truth is the very essence of life, it cannot be defeated. Its victory can be postponed - for years, even for centuries - but one day suddenly you have to recognize that you have been misbehaving, mistreating...

Just a few days ago I heard - Anando brought a news cutting - that the pope for the first time in two thousand years went to a synagogue and said that it was wrong to condemn the whole Jewish community for Jesus Christ's crucifixion; it was also absolutely wrong to condemn, kill, and destroy Jews throughout these twenty centuries as revenge for their having killed Jesus Christ.

Certainly they are not responsible. And nobody in the future, just because he is a Jew, will be thought to be responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. Those few people were responsible, but that does not mean that all the Jews forever have to be condemned, killed, destroyed. The Jews could not believe that the pope is saying these words after two thousand years of continuous persecution, murder, massacre - but truth one day or other has to be recognized.

This is simply stupid. A few people were responsible, but they are dead; you cannot take any revenge against them. Generations have passed, but still Jews are said to be responsible, and they have to be persecuted, harassed, killed on any excuse.

The pope accepted the fact, but it is not yet the victory of truth - just a battle has been won, not the war. If he has understood the fact, then he should change the biblical story. Adam and Eve's crime of disobedience, their sin, is their responsibility, but every Christian is born in sin because of their sin. Now what do you have to do with Adam and Eve?

Certainly if the pope understands the implications of what he has said then he should be able and courageous enough to say, "We withdraw that biblical story." Adam and Eve were responsible. God could have punished them - that is their business - but six thousand years have passed, according to the BIBLE, and still every Christian is born in sin and has to be punished because Adam and Eve committed sin. We are connected with them through generations and generations. But we were not part of it; we have not done it, we were not consulted.

One should be aware when he says something because it has implications. Now if the pope says Jews are not responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus, then no Christian is born in sin because Adam and Eve disobeyed God. If he accepts that implication, only then is what he is saying meaningful.

Otherwise it is all politics: it has nothing to do with truth, he simply wants more political support from the Jews.

And it is dangerous for Jews to support him, because finally that support will mean he will swallow the whole Jewish people. He will start saying, "We are not different. Jesus was a Jew, and we are Jesus' followers, and you are Jews - we are not different." And he has six hundred million Catholics.

If he does not accept that the biblical story is wrong, then he has to take his statement back or he has to accept that it is a political strategy.

It has never happened before, but in a joke I have heard that each year the pope and the high priest of the Jews meet on the road, both going towards each other's place. They meet in the middle, and a great crowd awaits them there to see the meeting. It is done very gracefully. The Jew bows down to the pope and gives him a scroll. The pope reads the contents of the scroll, gives it back, bows down to the Jew, and the meeting is finished. And people have always been wondering, "What is the matter? What transpires between these two people? And what does that scroll have in it?"

Every year the same scroll is being presented and read and given back, and thousands of people gather in the hope that they will know the secret of it. Finally the people go to the high priest of the Jews and ask, "What is the matter?"

The high priest laughs and says, "There is no secret: it is the bill for the Last Supper. It has not been paid yet, so we have to present it every year. Perhaps some pope may pay it, but they simply give it back."

Other than that there has been no meeting. This pope's going to them is simply a political gesture. If it is some truth that he has recognized, then it should be recognized in all its implications. That is the way to find out whether a truth has been recognized or not. A truth has to be recognized only with all its implications; otherwise there is some other reason for recognizing it - other than accepting truth.

I have said that I started my journey in the majority of one, and today I have to say to you that I will end my journey in the majority of one - for the simple reason that I cannot give you the truth. If through my devices you discover it, you also become a majority of one.

But truth itself is so powerful that it is enough to give even one man courage to stand against the whole world. Truth gives courage, because truth has an intrinsic quality that "finally I am going to win." You may not be able to see me victorious, but you are beginning something which is going to be victorious. Rejoice in it.

Question 4:

You are not penguins, and you are not in any way like that. But the masses are like that. And that's the difference between the masses and the seekers. Even if I drown, you are not going to leave me; particularly in a moment when I am drowning you cannot leave me: you will all jump in with me.

There is a bond never said, never signed by any party: your life is part of my life; my life is part of your life. So will be my death. You will rejoice and jump with me, rather than saving yourself and feeling guilty forever.

No, you are not like penguins. But the masses are like that; they watch, and if something succeeds, then they follow. If somebody fails, then they simply laugh, that he was foolish.

When the Wright brothers were making their first airplane they were thought to be mad, even by their own family: "Who has ever heard of airplanes, and why are you wasting your time?" And they were disturbed by the neighbors, by the family, by everybody to stop this nonsense. Nobody was even ready to hear what they wanted to say, what their plan was. And they were poor people, with no great lab to work in. Their father was just a bicycle merchant.

In the day they could not work, so only in the night... They had a basement in their house where the father used to collect extra parts of bicycles, broken parts or anything. So it was just junk and out of that junk they made their first airplane. It was made of bicycle parts.

Now the problem was that they could not fly it in the basement. So they took it out stealthily in the night, and early in the morning, as the sun was rising, far away from the village, they tried it. They themselves were not certain... because never had anything like that happened. But it worked! Just for sixty seconds it remained in the air, but they had succeeded. The secret was in their hands. If it can be sixty seconds, it can be sixty hours; there is not much of a problem - the formula is the same. Now the mechanism only has to be made better.

And then they declared to the whole town, "This evening we are going to experiment. You all come to see our madness!" First they did it alone - just the two brothers - one on the ground, one in the plane. And that evening almost the whole town - not only the town but nearby townspeople too - gathered to see their utter embarrassment: "These idiots are thinking to fly!"

But they were shocked to see that they had succeeded: again the plane was in the air for sixty seconds, and the Wright brothers asked, "Now what do you say? Who is mad?"

And immediately they were saying, "These boys are geniuses! And they are our boys, from our town, from our area." And the family was rejoicing. The family threw a party because "Our boys have succeeded."

The Wright brothers were surprised: What has happened? Nobody is calling us mad; we have suddenly become geniuses! From all over the world people were coming to see... great scientists, great manufacturers who were interested to manufacture it, to get the secret. That small place became a pilgrimage place.

The masses function exactly the way penguins function. If you succeed in something, everybody is in favor of you. If you fail in something, everybody is against you. If you succeed, everybody will say, "We already knew that you were going to succeed. Didn't I say it?" If you fail, the same people will say: "We had already told you, ?Don't be fools; this thing is not going to succeed.' "

The masses function like penguins or vice versa: penguins function like masses. But not you. You have already come with me, against the world. You are with me against the world.

It is not a question of imagining what you will do: you have already done it.

To be with me is to be in danger. And the danger will go on growing, first because the people who want to stop me, the people who want to cripple me so that I cannot work, will soon become desperate - and they can do anything. They have all the powers; it is just that they don't have the truth on their side. They have powers, but existence is not with them. They can do any kind of harm to me and to my people, but they cannot do any harm to the truth. And I am determined to sharpen the truth as much as possible before any damage can be done to me.

There are many things I still have to say, and the situations are not allowing me to say them. But we will find the situations to say them; we will make every effort. And I don't see that existence will not be supporting us.

Just you see: we have been rejected from Europe - from one airport to another airport, from one country to another country. It was a calamity if you thought about it at that moment. But now you know: existence has been more protective to us. It was good that they rejected us; now they are sitting under a cloud of death. If they had accepted us we would have been in the same danger.

We should send them thank you notes saying, "You are great! How did you manage to find out that some calamity is going to happen so that these beautiful people should not be put in danger?"